Children of BTs/Geirim

southernbubby

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 3:04 pm

naturalmom5 wrote:

Either that or, it was TV , or American culture.or later the internet, now its smartphones..

Some parents said "it was a nidriger neshoma vus iz urup gkimmin oif de velt" . Not sure how to translate that. Possibly, demonseed.

Maybe it was just mida cneged mida. The most arrogant families in the 80s that acted really meeyus to Baali Tshuva, were paid back with interest 20 years later.

The main reason for going off was probably physical, emotional, or zexual abuse but it probably felt better to blame TV, internet, and BTs. I also don't mind calling it mida cneged mida since some of those whose kids went off were full of themselves.

southernbubby

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 3:30 pm

amother wrote:

The arrogance of ffbs in communities with large numbers of BTs during the eighties and nineties was very disheartening. But I think now that we are decades later, we can reflect on what they were going through as well...a BT and his children were a new phenomenon...how do we relate? do we embrace or distance, and what impact will either approach have on my children? It was a very tumultuous time for all players involved.

Yes, I probably should not call it mida kneged mida because I never wanted anyone to suffer, even if I personally couldn't stand being around them (and maybe they felt the same about me). I feel bad for one of my FFB friends whose son went off but her husband had little patience for BTs and made no secret of it. We BTs did terrible things such as reading the Jewish Press and the Readers Digest, neither of which are in Yiddish. Nevertheless, we don't really know why anyone suffers in this world, and even if we dislike the person, we should not connect his personal suffering with his lousy personality because the two may not be related and only Hashem knows why he suffered.

naturalmom5

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 3:39 pm

amother wrote:

I really hate to be so harsh on a taanis, but this SOUNDS EXACTLY like the dilemma of the poor Polish guy in the '40s. Do I turn the Jew in and get a can of kerosine and a ham, or do I look the other way and say nothing, while my family goes hungry and cold..

amother

Burlywood

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 3:46 pm

naturalmom5 wrote:

You don't sound harsh, in those turbulent times, that's probably a good parallel for how many ffbs felt. And who is to say which option is correct? Should a person reach out and potentially risk his children's spiritual welfare? Should the Polish man take care of the Jew or his own children first?

It was such an unknown, challenging phenomenon, with no time in history with which to compare...one of the many crazy periods post Holocaust...

amother

Red

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 5:56 pm

"have not read the whole thread but" (we need an icon for this : )

I just heard a beautiful shiur about raising Hashem's children (I will see if I have permission to post the link). One thing the speaker mentioned that her mother would say, is that there are three partners in creating these children, and I am just the junior and least experienced, so I allow my other two partners to help as much as possible!

The speaker said, at one point she had many children but her baby was 2 years old, and, not being busy with an infant all the time, she was able to start really teaching her children 'seder v'nikayon' - which requires really being on top of things all the time. And, it was going quite well, when she found out she was expecting twins. So she said to Hashem, "I wanted to teach these children seder, but I'm not going to be able to do it, so I'm giving it all over to you Hashem, as the third partner." And it really worked, I think she said...

She spoke about a woman who had several children during WWII (all but one survived) and when someone asked her if she thought they could survive, she said she didn't dream of it but she was doing her job and letting Hashem do His.

And I think that applies in this conversation. OP did a very brave thing in becoming a Jew. She did a great mitzva in raising a family. It's not in our control how our children turn out, we can only do our best hishtadlus to give them a good chinuch, good opportunities, understand their individual needs etc. (not a small task) but ultimately the result is not up to us.

amother

White

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 6:45 pm

I too have not read all the comments, but I want to say this: One of my parents is a ger, the other grew up frum, went OTD for a bit, and then became much frummer then they were previously. A few years after my parents married, they became chabad.

I grew up in an OOT chabad community. Most of my classmates parents were BTs or joined chabad. I don't think even a single classmate was from an exclusively always chabad family. (known as Gezhe). I never felt any discrimination from classmates, teachers or community members. People have a lot of respect for my parents. None of us had problems with shidduchim either. Some of my siblings married into Gezhe families although most of us married people from BT families.

I have a lot of siblings (double digits) and all of them are frum and chabad and many are shluchim. One sibling is not frum. I think a 90% retention rate is pretty impressive.

I worry about my kids too. I am not nearly as enthusiastic about yiddishkiet as my parents. I do my best but I really struggle with stuff like davening with my little kids every day, reminding them to say brochos etc. I think the important thing in bringing up frum kids is to be positive about yiddishkiet. You do your best and Hashem will hopefully do the rest.

PinkFridge

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 6:52 pm

amother wrote:

Maybe the following scenario was more common among people who weren't from survivor families: If, say, 5 out of 7 of your grandparent's siblings (including grandparent) stayed frum, that was an awesome statistic.
Which means that you had second cousins who weren't frum.
I would have been thrilled for someone to reach out to them.

I guess you were there, or heard people talk about it authoritatively.

amother

Green

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 7:46 pm

I just had a chance to read through this whole thread. I am a FFB daughter of two BTs. My husband is a BT/Ger- he was raised Jewish but when he decided to become frum he realized his Mom’s conservative conversion was not valid. He was not running from anything and neither were My parents - no horrific trauma, childhood abuse, mental illness etc. they have loving families and we are close with the not frum ones (both sides) and the not Jewish (DH’s side). They are all normal families and they care about us too- one had a birthday party and made sure there were plenty of snacks we could eat. And planned it for a Sunday so we could be there. So any prejudicial statement by ONE GER does not make it a fact or even likely. It is a possibility like any major life decision might have.
One sibling is in kollel and the other does klei kodesh. I am BY. My life growing up was sometimes different than classmates and yes- I did get mean comments made to me about my parents. I was proud of them and told them off for their insensitive and wrong ideas. They apologized. My parents chose Torah- can you say you did?
I didn’t marry DH because he is a Ger. My siblings married FFBs. He was just the right guy for me- unlike so many FFBs I dated who didn’t show curtesy, basic kindness, the strong family ties and love, the passion for emes, the desire to learn Torah.... I was actually hesitant to marry him but spoke to my Rav who talked me through my concerns and I realized it wasn’t a big deal.
Sorry for the long speech- now on to my main point:
OP: you need to find a way to not make your kids feel different. Seder doesn’t have to be lonely without extended family- we always had at least one other family with us. A few times we had more guests than family! Sometimes it was someone who didn’t have a place to go (a typical family, a single dad and his kid, the guy who had to say kadish and never went to ship before but found this one by google and my father invited him on the way home from shul and quickly told me to set an extra seat and I pretended I just didn’t finish). We “adopted” families too.
Or if your learning isn’t up to par- get some English sefarim at home. My father built a huge collection based off what we were learning in school so they could help. Learn something together at the table and try to finish a Sefer that way. Connect with other families. Find activities frum kids do in the area and join.

Just don’t make it a “thing” or a blemish.

southernbubby

Thu, Dec 28 2017, 7:53 pm

amother wrote:

You have some good ideas, particularly that one in bold. If something is just matter of fact and no big deal, then that is the way it is treated, no different than if you live on the even or odd side of the street. The adopted intentional family works well too.